My senior year of high school is a time will always stay with me. I had some amazing experiences that year and have wonderful memories. I was accepted to many great colleges, I vacationed in Florida with my family, and I won queen on one of the most memorable nights of my life. Every part of my senior year was amazing except for one small piece, graduation. Southwick High school took the biggest hit out of the district when it came to renovations. The school needed to be updated immediately. This meant they would start tearing apart the already crumbling building and start rebuilding throughout the winter while we were inside. The administration told us that this construction would not affect our learning and that we should not let it bother us. I found this difficult to work with. It was very difficult to take a test when there was a truck pouring cement close enough to the building I could have reached out the window and touched it. It was also quite difficult when I would get to school in the morning and could not find a place because construction equipment was consuming the parking lot, even though I had paid $100 for a parking pass at the beginning of the year. The construction and renovations were annoying to say the least. Brand new state of the art science wings were being added and a new gym to the outside while ceiling tiles were cracking and falling from the inside and leaks were ruining classroom supplies and smart boards. It was even more frustrating knowing we were the students who had suffer through the construction and we would never benefit from its outcome. The school itself really needed to be torn down and rebuilt, but the district did not have the budget for that so instead they used a Band-Aid solution.
I remember very clearly the senior assembly at the beginning of the year. We went over the basic school policies and the changes and effects of the construction. They told us about our senior privileges and to make sure we do not screw up our last year and much more. Then I remember our principal Mrs. Hunter, went up to the podium and made us a promise. She said to all of us, about 110 seniors would be the last class to “walk down the hill” and graduate on the soccer field outside and that she would not let the construction get in the way. Walking down the hill has been a tradition in Southwick for as long as I can remember. Students would dig the class year into the hill and we would walk down it into the field and have our graduation ceremony. It was like a right of passage. As the class of 2014 we were all anxiously awaiting this day, knowing we deserved it for putting up with the construction. As you have probably assumed by now, this day never came. In early spring rumors started circulating that they had planned construction on the new track and soccer fields to begin right before graduation. We were furious. We started asking the teachers and administration and they would neither confirm nor deny it. It took them weeks to finally tell us the truth. We contacted the school board for more information they told us track construction was scheduled just two days before our graduation ceremony would be held. We immediately went into action. We had a petition signed by almost every single senior asking politely to reconsider this decision. A few friends and I attended a school board meeting. We brought our petition and wrote short speeches to address the committee. We waited politely until our turn to speak, then explained to the board why we thought their decision was unfair and to please reconsider. We told them how important this tradition was to us. We were as polite and courteous as possible talking to the members of the board, but we did not get that courtesy in return. The school committee members did not even make eye contact and continued to shuffle through their papers like we did not even exist. It was beyond insulting. There was nothing else we could do, especially if the superintendent of school’s would not even take the time to listen. In farther research we found that they had not yet contracted a company to work on the track and soccer field renovations. They refused to put of the construction two days before having asked a construction company to do anything. The change would have been simple. The school board made it very clear that they did not care even in the slightest about our class. Their only focus was on bettering the schools for future students, and neglecting the feelings of the current ones.
Our graduation ceremony was held on a beautiful day in May. It was a very nice ceremony, not too long and ironically they handed out construction caps for us to throw. We walked through the construction fencing and down the cracked cement hallways, where the tiles had recently been torn up. We sat in chairs in the hot gym where 800 plus family and friends came to watch the ceremony (each student was limited to 7 tickets). The students and faculty spoke and then Dr. Barry, hen he finished his speech many students including myself refused to stand or clap. We had been promised at the beginning of the year that the construction would not get in the way of our graduation ceremony, and that was a lie. We were graduating from a school where for four years we are taught right from wrong and how to properly handle real life situations. When that real life situation actually arose we did everything right, a formal petition, politely addressing the school board, not just complaining. None of it seemed to matter, we were not even given the time of day. It astounds me that a group of high school students can maturely fight for what they think is right using everything we are taught by that very school to get nothing in return. What does that teach us? That our efforts do not matter? That because we are just students we have no voice or opinion? To me the whole situation could have been avoided if the faculty stayed true to their promise or the school board took our efforts into consideration. Moving a construction start date months in advance before a company has been contracted is very simple. The fact that my school district could not do that for my classmates and I definitely sent a message that I will always remember.
High School Influence
My senior year of high school is a time will always stay with me. I had some amazing experiences that year and have wonderful memories. I was accepted to many great colleges, I vacationed in Florida with my family, and I won queen on one of the most memorable nights of my life. Every part of my senior year was amazing except for one small piece, graduation.
Southwick High school took the biggest hit out of the district when it came to renovations. The school needed to be updated immediately. This meant they would start tearing apart the already crumbling building and start rebuilding throughout the winter while we were inside. The administration told us that this construction would not affect our learning and that we should not let it bother us. I found this difficult to work with. It was very difficult to take a test when there was a truck pouring cement close enough to the building I could have reached out the window and touched it. It was also quite difficult when I would get to school in the morning and could not find a place because construction equipment was consuming the parking lot, even though I had paid $100 for a parking pass at the beginning of the year. The construction and renovations were annoying to say the least. Brand new state of the art science wings were being added and a new gym to the outside while ceiling tiles were cracking and falling from the inside and leaks were ruining classroom supplies and smart boards. It was even more frustrating knowing we were the students who had suffer through the construction and we would never benefit from its outcome. The school itself really needed to be torn down and rebuilt, but the district did not have the budget for that so instead they used a Band-Aid solution.
I remember very clearly the senior assembly at the beginning of the year. We went over the basic school policies and the changes and effects of the construction. They told us about our senior privileges and to make sure we do not screw up our last year and much more. Then I remember our principal Mrs. Hunter, went up to the podium and made us a promise. She said to all of us, about 110 seniors would be the last class to “walk down the hill” and graduate on the soccer field outside and that she would not let the construction get in the way. Walking down the hill has been a tradition in Southwick for as long as I can remember. Students would dig the class year into the hill and we would walk down it into the field and have our graduation ceremony. It was like a right of passage. As the class of 2014 we were all anxiously awaiting this day, knowing we deserved it for putting up with the construction.
As you have probably assumed by now, this day never came. In early spring rumors started circulating that they had planned construction on the new track and soccer fields to begin right before graduation. We were furious. We started asking the teachers and administration and they would neither confirm nor deny it. It took them weeks to finally tell us the truth. We contacted the school board for more information they told us track construction was scheduled just two days before our graduation ceremony would be held. We immediately went into action. We had a petition signed by almost every single senior asking politely to reconsider this decision. A few friends and I attended a school board meeting. We brought our petition and wrote short speeches to address the committee. We waited politely until our turn to speak, then explained to the board why we thought their decision was unfair and to please reconsider. We told them how important this tradition was to us. We were as polite and courteous as possible talking to the members of the board, but we did not get that courtesy in return. The school committee members did not even make eye contact and continued to shuffle through their papers like we did not even exist. It was beyond insulting. There was nothing else we could do, especially if the superintendent of school’s would not even take the time to listen. In farther research we found that they had not yet contracted a company to work on the track and soccer field renovations. They refused to put of the construction two days before having asked a construction company to do anything. The change would have been simple. The school board made it very clear that they did not care even in the slightest about our class. Their only focus was on bettering the schools for future students, and neglecting the feelings of the current ones.
Our graduation ceremony was held on a beautiful day in May. It was a very nice ceremony, not too long and ironically they handed out construction caps for us to throw. We walked through the construction fencing and down the cracked cement hallways, where the tiles had recently been torn up. We sat in chairs in the hot gym where 800 plus family and friends came to watch the ceremony (each student was limited to 7 tickets). The students and faculty spoke and then Dr. Barry, hen he finished his speech many students including myself refused to stand or clap. We had been promised at the beginning of the year that the construction would not get in the way of our graduation ceremony, and that was a lie. We were graduating from a school where for four years we are taught right from wrong and how to properly handle real life situations. When that real life situation actually arose we did everything right, a formal petition, politely addressing the school board, not just complaining. None of it seemed to matter, we were not even given the time of day. It astounds me that a group of high school students can maturely fight for what they think is right using everything we are taught by that very school to get nothing in return. What does that teach us? That our efforts do not matter? That because we are just students we have no voice or opinion? To me the whole situation could have been avoided if the faculty stayed true to their promise or the school board took our efforts into consideration. Moving a construction start date months in advance before a company has been contracted is very simple. The fact that my school district could not do that for my classmates and I definitely sent a message that I will always remember.